The Silver-Lining That is Kenya; Vote Wisely and Make Your Country Proud

One does not need to read Isak Dinesen aka Kare Blixen's Out of Africa in order to appreciate the fact that Kenya is indeed a big thing in Africa and playing in the league of South Africa and Nigeria. This reality is important to be put into context because we need to acknowledge and understand the basis of attention accorded to Kenya especially during her scheduled general elections such as the upcoming election later towards the end of this year. The interest of the international community is one that significantly shapes the outcome and future governance of Kenya although largely provisioning from behind-the-scenes.

Obviously a number of the leading presidential contenders have as of now pitched tent overseas in a bid to align their vision not only with the diaspora electorate but also with their potential partners, foreign elements with whom they intend to cooperate and articulate Kenya's vision in the foreseeable future. This discussion is timely because the ideology espoused by these politicians will have far reaching implications on Kenya’s future progress depending on who ultimately wins at the ballot box.

Generally speaking, the world today is uniformly dancing to tune of the orchestra from the inner core. The traditional overbearing influence of the colonial masters on their former colonies is almost faded completely particularly in the African continent and elsewhere around the globe as the whole world subscribes to the Washington consensus of good governance, democracy, accountability and economic freedoms with exception of a few zip codes, namely Iran, North Korea and some others in the middle east.

The war on terror is increasingly becoming a yard stick to determine the status of nations, allies or otherwise across the world; at least from the standpoint of the Western nations. Kenya's incursion into Somalia is consequently likely to serve Kenya's national interest in a positive light depending on how diplomacy will play out and the foreign policy of the next government. After all, with the launch of operation Linda inchi, Somalia is once again a pet subject for the international community after many decades of desertion by the community of nations.

Whereas other countries such as Nigeria, Libya and South Africa have oil and other rich mineral resources, Kenya has got vital geo political niche in addition to a powerful human capital to shape events in certain key areas of the world. The current Chinese involvement in development activities in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa is something that is going to weigh heavily both politically and economically on African countries such as Kenya in the long term. We need to know where the tradeoff lies in order to pay acceptable price in the end.

Kenyans have to overcome the tunnel vision of Wiper, PNU or ODM and think to see the big picture in order to elect leadership that will take Kenya to the next level.
 

By Mohamed Wato. Mohamed is a retired Army Officer and Author of the Book: "Walking a Tight  Rope Amidst Kenya Post Election Violence".

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